Comments on John Andrew Madore (1938–2020)

Toutes mes condoléances. Un de vos anciens élèves….

J'ai hésité à formuler mes sincères condoléances suite à ce très bel hommage parce que le deuil est quelque chose de si intime que les mots d'une personne qui n'a pas connu le disparu risquaient à mes yeux de pouvoir être déplacés. Et en même temps, avec le temps de fréquentation de ce blog et ses nombreuses pépites, ça sonne encore plus faux de ne pas les présenter à la suite d'un événement si important et triste à partir du moment où il est ainsi rendu public.

Je suis les aventures de David Madore depuis le début de leur narration, il y a environ 25 ans. Il est devenu comme "un ami d'internet", c'est-à-dire ces gens qui vous sont proches parce que vous les connaissez - sans qu'ils sachent que vous existez -, phénomène étrange né avec les blogs et que les moins de 20 ans ne peuvent pas comprendre.
Moi aussi, un jour j'ai enterré mon père, ce qui était à la fois inacceptable et évident d'inexorabilité. Les années passent, sans nous le dire, et un jour l'une d'entre elles n'arrive plus à se taire.
Tout cela relève, paraît-il, d'une architecture qu'il n'est pas exclu que nous comprenions un jour.
Il ne faut pas être triste.

Sincères condoléances.
Sache que j'ai entendu au vol la blague de la montgolfière en K-fêt il y a quelques lustres et que je l'ai souvent répétée. Je penserai maintenant à ton père à chaque fois que je la raconterai.

Je me joins à votre peine, et votre texte est beau.

Condoléances émues
- un anonyme d'internet

Toutes mes condoléances David, pour ce moment difficile.
Tes mots sont très beaux.
Il se dit à certains endroits (dans certains régiments militaires mais aussi en Amérique Latine, …) que les gens ne disparaissent pas vraiment tant que quelqu'un pense à eux. (A ce sujet précisément, "Coco" - studios Disney et Pixar, 2017) est l'une des œuvres qui m'a le plus touché)

Merci pour ce beau texte, toutes mes pensées t'accompagnent.

Toutes mes condoléances et merci pour ton partage.

Toutes mes condoléances.

You covered anything, so I can't add anything that helps. I'll just talk about my experience and views instead.

I entirely agree with your copimist views. It is worth to preserve memories, both of relatives, alive and dead, and of one's own life. I always feel that I'm very much remiss with that. I don't have a blog, no detailed records of the important events of my life. And I know that I forget more and more stories that are always in my head. I don't have a good excuse for this either: no catastrophic event that stopped me from writing notes, or that destroyed them.

One thing that does help me is to have material objects that are always visible in my home and remind me of relatives and friends, whether they're alive or dead.

Books are the easiest choice. My grandma gave me the Arany János complete poems volume in 1997, after I read a lot of it in her home. It's not too practical, pages are falling off it from the worn binding, though not because I read it that much, it was my grandmother's and already like that when I first got it in my hand. Her husband, who passed away in 2019, introduced me to Umberto Eco by gifting me a copy of “A tegnap szigete” in 2003. I have got a large number of books from my parents, but let me pick just a few. My father started my interest in Jules Verne by having many of his books accessible since when I was very small. So the shelf with Verne books makes me think of him, and my father's favorites “Kéraban-le-Tetû” and “Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours” especially so. I'm afraid I don't have any books that specifically remind me of my mother, because there isn't much taste that we shared in reading. Lázár Ervin's “A hétfejű tündér” reminds me of my brother. Lázár Ervin's “Berzsián és Dideki”, on the other hand, is a gift from my dear Hungarian teacher Judit néni, who passed away around 2006, so that's a great reminder of all that she tried to teach us about life. Judit néni also managed to impress us with her high regard of Arany János, but I can't connect this to any physical objects, rather it's reciting the ballads or reading Toldi through which I can remember her. Knuth's TAOCP reminds me always of the hours I spent from 1994 reading it in the school library, often borrowing them as well, since they were clearly the most interesting book in the library. Those books, and especially balanced search trees described in volume 3, are I imagine what sealed the deal of pushing me into mathematics and computers for life. I have met “Concrete Mathematics” only later, around 1998, when another teacher gifted me a copy. G. Szabó Judit's novels, especially “Megérjük a pénzünket”, remind me of G. Szabó Judit herself, who I met in 2006 and 2007, in what turned out to be the last possible years, since she became unable to meet readers anymore from 2008, and passed away in 2010. There are other books that remind me not of a particular person, but to my different stages of life, and places I visited.

Unlike my mother, I like to keep my surroundings clean and functional and rarely changing. So I don't have many photos on the wall, or purely decorative objects on the shelves. I do still have a few such tokens visible though. Next to my desk I have a christmas-themed cheramic statuette that I got from a school friend, so it reminds me of him and by extension all the other pleasant times spent with friends in high school. Also next to my desk is a metalic wind bell, reminding me of the first years of university. There's also a group photo on the wall of the living room of a skiing trip, representing all the pleasant skiing trips with my friends between 2005 and 2016. About my father's mother, who passed away when I was very young, but still old enough to have memories of visiting her.

There aren't many material objects remaining that would remind me of her, apart from a few photos, and two objects that my father keeps in his home: a book by Krúdy and a very worn pack of cigánykártya. It is to remember her indirectly through those objects why I have bought myself a deck of cigánykártya, though I keep that one in a drawer, not on display.

-----

Sometimes I think of the passing of loved ones, and of my father's mother in particular. Tonight, after your blog post, is one of those times. There's a certain sad song that I always listen to on these occasions: “Tell me there's a heaven” by Chris Rea. I would like to explain what this song means to me, because it is a bit connected to a line in your post.

> À plus forte raison, non seulement [your father] ne croyait pas en Dieu, mais il avait le mépris le plus complet pour ce genre de considérations, ou pour toute forme de métaphysique
> [#5] Ma mère non plus ne croit pas en Dieu, mais pour elle c'est une question plus politique, c'est un athéisme qui prend la forme d'une hostilité contre l'Église en tant qu'institution, de la religion en tant qu'instrument d'oppression des peuples, tandis que pour mon père c'était vraiment le mépris de ce qu'il considérait comme des questions non-scientifiques qui l'emportait.

I have read some atheist people bring up an argument on why, even though they are certain that there is no God, they don't consider atheism important. They argue that if someone believes in God, they aren't committing a sin or hurting anyone. I admit this is somewhat like Pascal's mugging, but there is an important difference that they explain it from the point of view where they are certain that God doesn't exist. If there was a God, but a different religion was true about what they are like and what they command, then it could be dangerous to believe in a religion, because God could punish you for those false beliefs and for disobeying their commands. But since God doesn't exist, there is nobody with the authority that you insult with your religion. There is no need to detail the advantages that religion as a cultural construct has brought to culture for someone who is as fond of tradition as you.

Chris Rea's song, however, tells me that, on contrary, it can be a sin to be religious, at least if you do so publicly. This is because children will notice it, such children that still have enough inherent trust in everything you say and that you do. So by behaving as if there was a God, you lie to the children that there is a God, and this false belief will harm then. Those children may grow up to adults who still believe in God, and can't get their own conclusions to overturn this believe, because what they learned in their childhood stays with them.

Toutes mes condoléances, et bravo pour ce texte très touchant.

Bel hommage !

Toutes mes condoléances

Que la terre lui soit légère.

Toutes mes condoléances David, et merci pour ce bel hommage.

David, je t'adresse toutes mes condoléances ainsi qu'à ta maman. Je vous souhaite beaucoup de courage.

Amicalement,
Adrien.

Cher David,
C'est avec émotion que mes parents, Richard et Grazyna Kerner, m'ont fait part de cette triste disparition. J'ai de tendres souvenirs de nos lointaines visites chez vous, lorsqu'accompagné par mon frère Jacques, nous jouions à la chimie amusante ou aux jeux d'ordinateurs que tu avais programmé. Ces quelques visites m'ont profondément marqué car j'y étais saisi par la tendre et sereine atmosphère de votre foyer et la gentillesse de ton père.
Mes parents m'ont fait part de leur émotion à l'écoute de ton discours pendant la cérémonie et je te remercie de l'avoir reproduit ici.
Toutes mes sincères condoléances.
Pierre Kerner